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Accountancy and business advisory Beever and Struthers has begun a management Knowledge Transfer Partnership (mKTP) with Aston University to help drive the firm’s data-driven technologies within audit functions.
An mKTP is built around identifying strategic management-based initiatives to increase business effectiveness and improve management practices.
As part of the mKTP and led by the university’s professor Brian Nicholson and Dr Sung Hwan Chai fromAlliance Manchester Business School, Dr George Moyenda Salijeni from Aston Business School, and the team, will conduct a comprehensive evaluation of Beever and Struthers’ existing data systems.
Following the assessment, specific methodologies will be proposed to ensure alignment between the mKTP and the firm’s ongoing data systems.
The 30-month programme will aim to develop, embed and exploit smart data-driven technologies within the audit function, enabling the business to increase the quality, productivity and capacity to deliver additional insight and value to clients.
Dr George Salijeni, a lecturer in accounting at Aston Business School, said: “This mKTP offers an opportunity to share and utilise knowledge and technical exposure, which academics at Aston University and Alliance Manchester Business School have gained and generated over the years through undertaking multi-disciplinary research and engagements with practitioners and audit regulators on data driven technologies which include artificial intelligence.
“Potentially, this project generates insights and workflows that could impact and transform the way audits are performed by leveraging data driven analytics tools and models.”
Michael Tourville, partner at Beever and Struthers, said: “Given that the business has been around for up to 125 years, it is quite traditional in its approach, but we are now keen to embrace the opportunities that a truly digital transformation could offer.
“Although we are a firm with a long history, we are also an entrepreneurial business and are keen to grasp opportunities when we see them.”
He added: “This mKTP is all about giving our clients more insight and helping us navigate data far better too. The main improvements for us will come from increased efficiency and insight, but we will also be able to further improve the quality of the service we offer.”
